By Steve Plunkett
Gulf Stream is ending its decades-long contract with trash hauler Waste Management Inc. of Florida and shifting instead to Boca Raton-based Coastal Waste and Recycling Inc.
The move means monthly bills for picking up trash from residents’ back or side doors will drop slightly, from $47.82 to $46.
“Our residents aren’t going to see a lot of change,” said Assistant Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro, who spent most of 2024 negotiating the contract with help from Kessler Consulting.
But the switch also avoids Waste Management’s planned price change to $61.34, a 62% hike from the $37.86 it was charging as recently as last March.
“They really did not want to do backdoor service anymore,” Town Manager Greg Dunham said.
The Coastal Waste arrangement will have an initial 10-year term with an option to renew for two five-year extensions.
“So it’s a potential 20-year agreement,” said Nazzaro.
The contract wording also provides for annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index, rather than the higher “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Water and Sewer and Trash Collection Services” that Waste Management had proposed.
Proposals were received from Waste Management, Coastal Waste and Waste Pro USA, with Coastal Waste receiving the top ranking. Nazzaro said he will bring a final contract to the Town Commission in January.
Waste Management, the town’s trash hauler since at least 1997, had sought a five-year contract extension in 2019 at a 26% increase plus an annual cost adjustment tied to the water-sewer-trash index. But the town negotiated a 6% increase for the five years with annual increases tied to the specialized index.
This time the company insisted on the 62% increase and rebuffed any talk of lowering the rate.
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